Staying Strong
by Canne
Summary: While in Germany at Donna’s bedside Josh tries to keep things together.
1. Default Chapter

Title: Staying Strong  
  
Author: Canne  
  
Disclaimer: Ha ha ha. Oh that's funny. Yeah. Definitely not mine.  
  
Spoilers: Season Five, up to and including the spoilers for "Memorial Day"  
  
Summary: While in Germany at Donna's bedside Josh tries to keep things together.  
  
A/N: This is my first West Wing fic and my first fic ever with dialogue. Any response would be greatly appreciated and if anyone has ideas about a suitable title for the work please share! The only way I'll improve is through criticism, so feel free to be as harsh as you feel is necessary. 

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Josh can see his hands shaking as he pulls his ringing cell phone out of his bag, but he can't feel them. He hasn't slept eaten in over twenty hours and hasn't slept since God knows when. Donna should be yelling at him to take care of himself, but instead she's unconscious, her alabaster skin the colour of talcum powder, the only colour coming from the lacerations peppering her face.  
  
"Hello?" Josh repeats the word several times before he actually makes an audible sound. The constricted feeling that's been building up in his chest even since his pager went this morning has made its way into his throat.  
  
"Josh, are you in Germany?" Leo's voice on the other end of the line reminds Josh of how quickly the entire day (is it days now?) has gone.  
  
"Yeah, um...I'm sorry I didn't...I should've talked to you..." Josh knows that he's bordering on babbling but he can't stop, because if he stops he'll start...something. And Josh knows that something, once it starts, won't stop. If Donna saw him like this...but that's the problem, isn't it?  
  
Leo interrupts Josh's rambling, "Josh, it's okay. I told you before, we understand, we were just...worried." Josh knows what worried means, it means 'worried that you might have decided to jump into the Potomac', 'worried that you might have put your hand through another window', 'worried that you've gone off the deep end.'  
  
"She had surgery, her lung, it collapsed and they put a metal rod in her leg."  
  
"Well that'll be hell getting through security every morning." Josh knows that Leo's making a joke but Josh can't laugh.  
  
"Leo, she's so pale. I don't...what if she doesn't...I never..."  
  
"Josh, stop it. Donna will be fine. She tougher than anyone I've ever met. You just have to be strong for her." The tears that have been welling up in his eyes all day are threatening to escape once again. He wishes his father was still alive, he loves Leo like a father but Leo's his boss. Cry over the phone to your boss who's an ocean away is not something Josh is comfortable doing, but right now it's a real possibility.  
  
"How? She's strong for me. I can't..." Josh's voice is cut off as sobs take over his body. He doesn't bother to try and be quiet, there's no one to hear him other than Leo, and Donna is still unconscious. He hasn't cried like this since...ever. When his father died it wasn't as traumatising, he had been dying and Josh had been able to prepare himself. But how do you prepare for something like this?  
  
Leo waits the six minutes it takes for Josh to stop before he talks again. "She's going to be okay kid. You'll both be okay." His voice is quiet, subdued. "Have you called her parents since you got there? I know the President wants to phone them, so if you're not up to it I'm sure he'd be more than happy to."  
  
"No, I, uh, haven't, I didn't remember to. I talked to them back in D.C. They don't even know that she's stable. I should've called them hours ago."  
  
"Josh it's fine. I'll have Margaret phone them right now. What should she tell them?"  
  
"Just that Donna's stable, that her lung collapsed but everything's okay and that she had several compound fractures in her femur but they inserted a metal rod in her leg. She's unconscious now but the doctor thinks she'll regain consciousness soon. They're still worried about blood clotting though...Did you get all that?"  
  
"Yes." Margaret's voice answers over Leo's speakerphone. He can tell she wants to say something more, something personal but he also knows that Leo's shooting daggers at her, shooing her out of the room.  
  
"The Moss' will probably want to come out there, you know. I'll have Margaret book them tickets and then phone you with their flight information. Are you going to be able to deal with them once they get there?"  
  
"I don't know." Josh answers honestly. He feels so lost, so alone. Without work and without Donna, he doesn't have anything.  
  
"Is there anyone else we should contact? A roommate, friends?"  
  
"Umm, her roommate Carrie, and there are a couple of people on the Hill: Marge and Steve in Chris Wick's office for sure. And I guess Ainsley Hayes. And Sam, someone should call Sam."  
  
"Yeah, okay, we'll get in touch with all of them. What about you? Do you need Margaret to book you a hotel, and maybe have someone at the consulate pick up some clothes and stuff for you?"  
  
"No, I'll just stay here until the Moss' come. It'll be fine Leo." The lump in Josh's throat warns that everything isn't fine, that nothing can be right anymore but Leo has more important things to worry about than an unstable DCOS.  
  
"Take care of yourself Joshua. We'll be here if you need anything." Josh hangs up without answering. Donna's monitors have started beeping at an alarming rate and Josh can feel his own heart racing. Before he can even lift himself out of his seat doctors and nurse have flooded the room, pushing him into the background, and surrounding Donna's bedside.  
  
As the assembled staff rushes her out of the room the only thing he catches are the two words that they are all repeating: pulmonary embolism.  
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Good, bad, horrible? Tell me, help me make Chapter Two better.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Staying Strong (Chapter 2) Author: Canne A/N: Thanks so much for all of the great feedback following the first chapter, it's greatly appreciated.  
  
When Josh's phone rings a second time he's sitting in the barren waiting room, staring at the pseudo impressionist prints on the walls. The on duty nurse, her name tag reads Martha, glares at him from her place at the reception desk and gestures pointedly at the no cell phone sign hanging on the wall. Instead of answering the phone Josh glances at the call number and then hits the power button. It feels so wrong, to turn off a cell phone. When was the last time he did that? He can't remember.  
  
"Is there a phone I could use?" Josh asks Nurse Martha, who, despite Josh's compliance with hospital rules, is still glaring at him. As she angrily shoves a phone at him, bitter for some unknown reason, Josh wonders if he should have gone outside and just used his cell phone to make the call, but it's too late now. He thanks Martha and then, angling his body and the phone away from her prying eyes, he dials the number that had appeared on his cell phone. The phone rings only once before it is picked up.  
  
"Hello?" Josh has never been so glad to hear anyone's voice.  
  
"Mom." The word slips past his lips before he has time to censure his tone and emotions. He sounds tired and ragged, even to his own ears. He sounds helpless. He wants to sound confident, brash. He wants to sound normal.  
  
"Joshua, Leo just phoned me. How's Donna? How are you?" Hana Lyman, ever since she met Donna via the telephone during the first campaign has looked upon her as a daughter, something which she frequently reminds Josh of. Like all mothers, Hana's aspirations for Josh's future include a wife, children and far fewer hours spent at the office.  
  
"She, I don't know. They pushed me out of the room an hour and half ago. She had a pulmonary embolism. I...no one's come out yet. No one can tell me anything. I feel so helpless." He doesn't have to say the rest of what he's thinking, what if she doesn't make it?  
  
"Joshua, she'll make it. She has too, who else could take care of you?" He appreciates the sentiment and her attempt at humour, but he can't believe her. Donna's stubborn, but he's not sure the lure of harassing him has the power to bring her back to life. Maybe, if she knew everything else that he could offer her, everything that he's wanted to tell her, maybe then that might be enough. He remembers after Rosslyn, those hazy days, drifting in and out of consciousness, alternately gaining and loosing the will to go on. He remembers Donna, sitting there next to him, through all of it. Through his drugged delusions and the dark, torturous hours between receiving medication she was always there. Guarding him from the demons that sought to steal him from her. Will he even get that chance to guard her like she did him? And, if she even makes it to that point, will he be enough, enough to make her want to live, to survive, to fight?  
  
"Why her?" Josh can feel his anger rising, anger which he has done such a good job of suppressing since his outburst back at the West Wing. His anger at the universe for allowing bad things to happen to good people, his anger at whoever set the bomb in Gaza, and his anger at the President for not reacting more harshly, more quickly. But most of all he's angry at himself. Angry for letting Donna go. Why couldn't he just have taken her to Belgium? Belgium was nice, she would have loved it, and he could have made it happen. Instead, he chose the Middle-fucking-East. Ever since he'd given her her diplomatic passport, god that seemed long ago now, ever since then he'd been scared to death that something would happen to her, and now it had. He should have trusted his gut, should have kept her home, in DC with him where she'd be safe. But he didn't, and now she could be dying.  
  
"I don't know why Joshua, but there's no point in crying over it now. You can't change the past, but you can alter the future. When Donna gets through this, and she will, things are going to change."  
  
"I want things to change." And he does. He has so much that he needs to tell Donna, which, if he can tell her, should change everything between them. But change, he's suddenly realising, is good, especially if it means a future with Donna.  
  
"Well they will." There's a pause between them, not an awkward silence, but an uneasy one. He has nothing to say to her, but he can't hang up on her, she's his mother and even without talking her breathing on the other end of the line reassures him in the way that nothing else, save Donna, could.  
  
Nurse Martha is clearing her throat loudly behind Josh and when he turns around to face her she is pointing finger at the space behind him. Josh turns around in time to see an unconscious but stable Donna, surrounded by the same crowd of nurses as before, being wheeled back into her hospital room. His knees go weak with relief and he sends up a silent prayer to whoever is listening, thanks for giving him a second chance.  
  
"Mom, they just brought Donna back. I have to go."  
  
As he hangs up the phone, fumbling in his haste with placing the receiver in its holder, grumpy Nurse Martha smiles at him for the first time and suddenly, as he rushes to Donna's room, the world doesn't seem as dark as it did five minutes ago. 


End file.
